Witch Hazel: Winter All-Star
It snowed today in the Catskill Mountains. Deep and thick and slick and icey. And the higher I climbed up the mountain, the heavier it came. Beneath the snow, undeterred from the business of blossoming, was the witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Adorning the newly white landscape with a spattering of yellow blooms, this bush cannot be beat. It’s architecture is superb- leggy and curvaceous somehow, supple in its sinuous form. It’s foliage in fall is radiant, and yellow as egg yolks. And it’s flowers? Four streaming petals rolled up like golden tongues, set around a scarlet mouth (unless you have the Chinese species, as pictured, which is completely red). I am an advocate for the strange and unusual in all things garden related, and the combination of flowers, and snow, will never get old.
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